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Voltaa new startup with a team split between headquarters in Milan and Paris, has secured a €6 million ($6.3 million) seed round to develop a new vertical SaaS platform focused on B2B sales.
In practice, the Volta team pitches its product as an equivalent to Shopify but focuses on business-to-business transactions. While Shopify, the e-commerce giant that helps people create an online store and easily sell items to consumers, offers a B2B commerce platform, Folta believes there is value in creating a company specifically focused on B2B transactions.
According to Volta, most medium-sized wholesale and distribution companies across Europe still use paper catalogs and rely on manual order processing.
When they go to trade shows and meet potential customers at their offices, these companies tend to juggle several versions of their paper catalogs. Depending on the customer and the context, they may not want to display the same list of items and prices.
That’s why Volta wants to simplify the catalog management process. However, the company does not want to replace the good old ERP system. When a purchase order is signed, the transaction is processed through the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
But whatever happens before the deal will likely be handled by Volta. Businesses can upload their existing catalog from Excel files or their ERP system. They can validate the column classification and then import everything into Volta.
Then, employees can create catalogs from the Volta interface, share them with potential customers, track current negotiations, and quickly update orders. Pricing and inventory data stay in sync with the ERP system.
“The B2C sector has evolved rapidly, with digital platforms replacing paper catalogs and providing integrated e-commerce solutions. Meanwhile, B2B operations have lagged by nearly 15 years, and are still hamstrung by outdated manual processes.
Volta also lets you manage clients directly from the platform’s interface. Users can create company profiles, create categories, and group customers into different categories. “This only covers 20% of what you can do with Salesforce, but it’s still good enough for most companies,” Guillemin told TechCrunch.
In the future, you can imagine more products and features that could be useful to mid-sized wholesale and distribution companies. Volta could add logistics integrations and even financing options. The idea is that once companies start using Volta, they see the value in managing catalogs in a SaaS platform and start using Volta for more features.
This pre-funding round represents the largest pre-seed round for an Italian startup. Part of the reason the startup was successful in raising €6 million immediately was the founding team.
Guillemin, the company’s co-founder and co-CEO, previously founded it Freightlinka ground transportation startup, has raised tens of millions of euros but has not expanded as expected. The company had to undergo court-ordered liquidation after the bankruptcy process.
Mario Bartelli, the other co-founder and co-CEO, previously founded Abiby, a beauty and cosmetics subscription box company. He spent 15 years working in technology at Facile.it, Rocket Internet, and more. The duo are aiming to achieve their first major achievement with Volta.
slogana relatively new European venture capital firm, is leading the pre-seed round with other funds and dozens of angel investors are also participating, such as Robin Capital, Founders Future, Sequoia and a16z through their scouting programmes, and investment companies affiliated with the Berlusconi family. Or the Agnelli family and others.
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